1854.15

Sacramento "Hombres" Play Ball Before Several Hundred, Break Stuff

Salience	Noteworthy
Tags
Location	CaliforniaCalifornia
City/State/Country:	Sacramento, CA, US
Modern Address
Game	OFBBOFBB
Immediacy of Report	Contemporary
Age of Players	AdultAdult
Holiday
Notables
Text	"A Game of Ball - People will have recreation occasionally, whether it be considered exactly dignified or not. Yesterday afternoon there was a game of ball played on J street which created no little amusement for several hundred persons. The sport lasted a full hour, until finally some unlucky hombre sent the ball through the window of a drug store, penetrating and fracturing a large glass jar, much to the chagrin of the gentlemanly apothecary, who had not anticipated such unceremonious a carronade."
Sources	Daily Democratic State Journal (Sacramento CA), March 24, 1854.
Warning
Comment	Richard adds: "Of course this raises the usual questions of what "a game of ball" means. Clearly it is a bat-and-ball game, and given the documented earlier games of baseball (in some form or other) in California and the absence of documented references of the other usual suspects such as wicket in California, it is a reasonable guess that this was [a form of] baseball. I am less willing to make the leap to its being the New York game." Edit with form to add a comment
Query	Edit with form to add a query
Source Image	[[Image:\|left\|thumb]]
External Number
Submitted by	Richard Hershberger
Submission Note	19CBB posting (date lost)
Has Supplemental Text

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